


The Known Unknowns

by A_Fine_Piece



Series: A Thin Red Line [52]
Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Archery, Arranged Marriage, Betrayal, Bullying, Child Abandonment, Dancing, F/M, Family Drama, Family Dynamics, Forced Prostitution, Ghost Stories, Kimono, Love, Love Confessions, Shamisen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-17
Updated: 2020-06-17
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:00:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24772027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Fine_Piece/pseuds/A_Fine_Piece
Summary: [Set prior to the series] Hisana attends the Kuchiki party, suffering both public humiliation and betrayal.
Relationships: Kuchiki Byakuya/Kuchiki Hisana, Shiba Kaien/Shiba Miyako
Series: A Thin Red Line [52]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/93946
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10





	The Known Unknowns

Her first problem was that she had no kimono suitable for the event. When Hisana drew her closet door back, all she found were intricate, sumptuous silks, appropriate for calling attention to her. But, she didn’t want attention at the event. Instead, her goal was to _drive_ _attention away_ _from her_. 

Courtesans, however, don’t deal in _frumpy_ kimono. Many of the patrons already had legal wives who wrapped themselves in subdued shades with subtle patterns. If the men wanted more of the same, they wouldn’t spend obscene amounts of money on an oiran. 

This _horrifying_ discovery sent Hisana to visit with the House’s bookkeeper, a petite man with a well-kempt beard who also managed the books of several other bordellos, teahouses, and restaurants that dot the Pleasure Quarters. His eldest daughter was always elegantly styled in quality silks that were eye-catching, but never gauche. Exactly what Hisana needed.

She cajoled and pestered him until he relented and set up a meeting with his wife. The wife, however, was easier to convince of Hisana’s plight, lending Hisana a lovely kimono the color of frosted mint with a quiet pattern of autumn leaves sweeping across the hips and legs. The gold, bronze, and silver threads of the leaves shifted with the light, giving the design just enough complexity _._

The task of finding an appropriate attire took Hisana nearly all day. And, now, here she stands without a moment to spare.

“Hair?” Yua asks, an ivory comb in her hand and an eager look on her face.

“No time,” Hisana says, crossing the floor to her vanity, where she kneels, fingers frantically tearing at the drawers until she finds a pretty red ribbon. She takes the comb that Yua offers, rakes it through her hair with a few hard tugs, and wraps the ribbon around the base of a loose, low-hanging ponytail.

Hisana glances up Yua, waiting for the girl’s commentary. ‘ _Well?’_ her expression asks.

Yua frowns. “Are you sure? It’s a little—” her voice trails off, smothered by a deep frown.

“Boring? Mundane? Drab?”

“Wifely,” adds Yua, scrunching up her nose as if the visual had a taste, and that taste was sour milk.

Hisana chuckles lightly into her sleeve. “Good.”

“Aren’t you going to an event at Kuchiki manor?” asks Yua, nonplussed.

Hisana nods her head, reaching for her small bottle of oil that smells of white plum blossoms. 

“Won’t Lord Byakuya Kuchiki be there?” Yua continues, eyes flashing to Hisana’s closet, as if to mentally nudge Hisana back there to rethink her outfit.

“He will be.” Hisana represses the urge to grin as she dabs the oil to the pulse of her wrist.

Yua’s voice comes out so small, so uncertain, but Hisana hears her question all the same, “Did his fight with Lord Konoe render him blind?”

Hisana laughs, full-throated and merrily. “Yua!” she teases back, “the kimono isn’t _that_ bad.”

The girl tucks her chin down, brows knitting together. “It just isn’t you.”

Hisana cocks her head, gaze returning to her reflection in the sliver of glass that sits atop her vanity. She isn’t so sure of Yua’s assessment. Hisana has been hiding in brightly painted, glossy silks since she arrived at the Peony House. Kimono have become another piece of armor, another means to communicate her mood or feelings to her patrons or those around her. She isn’t _precious_ about them, like some of the other courtesans, including her friend, Okuni, who would rather die a million deaths than be caught in a “wifely” kimono.

Yua shoots Hisana a skeptical glance. “Won’t Lord Byakuya Kuchiki’s fiancée be in attendance?”

Hisana smirks a little, wondering where Yua’s inquiry is going. “Yes.”

“Don’t you think she will be dressed in a luxurious furisode?” Yua extends one of her arms as if to imagine the weight and fall of a long sleeve.

“As a young unmarried noblewoman, I would be shocked if she wasn’t.”

“So, you’re going to vie for Lord Byakuya Kuchiki’s attention in _that_?”

Hisana giggles a little to herself before turning to Yua and taking the girl’s hands in her own. “Tonight will be like performing a dance in the dark. I don’t want too many people to notice me in case I fumble a little.”

Yua’s lips purse at this. “But,” she says, pushing a tendril of hair from Hisana’s eyes and giving her a sincere once-over, “I don’t think that will stop Lord Byakuya Kuchiki from noticing you. And I think it might give everyone else the impression that you have bad taste.”

Ah, that is the catch, Hisana thinks to herself with a grin. If she pulls out one of her finest dresses and flaunts it proudly, then the Kuchiki and Heishi would consider her ostentatious, a poor girl trying to pretend she’s monied. _‘Such a pity_ , _’_ she can almost hear them say. If she wears a simple kimono, then they will complain that she has failed to live up to the grandeur of her class.

There is no winning tonight. The best she can hope for are the moments where she blends into the scenery; this kimono accomplishes that goal with ease. If someone notices her, it’s because they _want_ to see her and speculate.

A thudding knock sends both Hisana and Yua scattering from the vanity. Shunsho slides back the door, eyes finding Hisana with quiet alarm. His gaze then flits to Yua, who grimaces and shrugs helplessly as if to say, _‘I tried.’_

Hisana cuts Shunsho a warning glance. “It’s not that bad.”

His lips thin a little. “Far be it from me to question my mistress’s strategy for tonight.” He then leads the way down the steps to the front of the Peony House, where a covered Kuchiki litter awaits.

There is a refreshing nip in the air when Hisana crosses out of the House. Wind tears down the streets, howling as it catches her sleeve, causing it to flap back and forth as she waits for the men to ready themselves. 

“Feels like a storm may be on the way,” she calls to Shunsho.

“The paper said it should blow in late tonight. You should be fine,” he responds, straining to speak over the gusting cries echoing down the alleyways nearby.

Hisana hesitates, unable to meet the instructive glances issued from the men commissioned to hoist the litter. Something feels wrong. No, everything feels wrong.

The air is cold and damp, dragging down her throat like shattered glass every time she inhales. Every muscle clamps down, making it hard to move. She wants to run far away.

But, she can’t.

“Miss Hisana,” urges Shunsho, gently nudging her toward the litter.

When she climbs inside, she can barely believe her eyes. The first good news she’s had all day. Reflexively, she wraps her arms around her dear friend. 

“Okuni!”

Okuni giggles lightly; her voice sounds like the tinkling of bells, and she reciprocates Hisana’s embrace. “Fancy finding you here,” teases Okuni with a knowing glance.

Hisana jumps back a little, heart galloping with happiness in her chest. “I can’t believe it.” Part of her is quick to rejoice. The other, darker part of her wonders if this is some sleight of hand, some trick.

“Did you get my message?” asks Hisana.

Okuni nods her head. “I know,” she says, reaching out and squeezing Hisana’s hand. “I mean, now I _really know_.” She makes a broad swooping gesture at the palanquin. “This could _not_ have been cheap.” 

Okuni smiles gently, eyes taking Hisana in. “Good gods!” she cries, “What are you wearing? Did you get married when I wasn’t looking?”

“It’s not that bad!”

“You keep telling yourself that. This,” Okuni says with a fluttering up and down gesture, “is what women wear when they’ve given up.”

Hisana gives a long, slow shake of her head. “Oh, Okuni,” she sighs, eyes lingering on every detail of Okuni’s layers of black and white kimono. She looks like a goddess, beautiful and beyond reproach.

“But really, what is _this_? Don’t tell me that Lord Byakuya Kuchiki chose this for you and you felt obligated—”

Hisana scoffs a little and presses her shoulder into the back of the cage. “No,” she replies, lips twisting around her next thought, “It’s just—” her voice trails off. She doesn’t want to say what comes next; her heart stutters at the words burning on her tongue.

“It’s just—what? He was blinded during his fight with Lord Konoe and so now you can relax in bland kimono?”

“Yua made the same comment—” teases Hisana.

Okuni gasps. “—even your _child attendant_ told you to change?”

“—also, you know?” Hisana half-cries, words lapping over Okuni’s.

“Know what?” asks Okuni, putting aside her performative horror, “About the fight between Lords Byakuya Kuchiki and Tadahiro Konoe?” She blinks hard. “Of course, I know! _Everyone knows_!” she cackles, throwing her arm back like a bird stretching a heavily plumaged wing. “They weren’t exactly _discreet_ , fighting on a public bridge in the middle of the Seireitei. What _idiots_!”

Hisana feels the heat drain from her cheeks. Well, there went that hope for the evening—that maybe no one in attendance at the party would know what happened. “Do you know why?”

Okuni snorts, chin drawing closer to her neck. She gives Hisana an appraising stare. “Could it have been due to a certain dinner with a lovely courtesan that went awry?”

“How many people know that part of the story?”

Okuni shakes her head. “Probably not _everybody_ , but those in the know in the Pleasure Quarters suspect the culprit of the dispute.”

Hisana loosens a soft sigh at this. Maybe the ladies at the full-moon viewing party will be ignorant as to why the two noblemen came to blows.

“So, why again did you choose _this_?” Okuni gestures vaguely at the kimono and frowns.

Hisana heaves a heavy breath, letting it slip through her nose. “It’s just—” again, her heart pulls the words back down her throat. She turns her head, eyes focused on the glittering lights between the slats of the litter. “This feels less like an event and more like an interview.”

“An interview?” echoes Okuni, intrigue brightening her voice. She leans forward, elbows digging into her thighs as her long fingers lace together. “What kind of interview?”

“An interview to become Lord Byakuya’s concubine.”

Okuni’s jaw drops so wide that she looks like a fish gulping for air. Just as quickly as the shock hits comes the excitement. “That’s so amazing!” she sings in a high vibrato. She then scoops Hisana into her arms and squeezes with every fiber of strength she can muster.

Buried in layers of lavish silk, Hisana bats the fabric from her face and inhales a troubled breath.

“You don’t seem as excited,” Okuni observes, drawing back from her hug to get a look at Hisana. “This is _the dream_ , Hisana. Relative freedom. And, if he’s like any other rich lord, he’ll forget you exist soon enough, but you’ll still be the mistress of an outrageously nice mansion!”

Hisana presses her lips together and searches the wood boards of the litter. 

“What?” Okuni tilts her head to the side, cupping Hisana’s cheek. “You think you’ll miss me too much?”

Hisana grins at this for a moment before her thoughts bury her again, like snow coating tree roots. “I just don’t know if I have the temperament.” What she really wants to say is that she isn’t sure she has the heart for it, nor the steadiness.

Okuni nudges Hisana’s chin up. “You love him?”

Hisana immediately snaps back. She hugs her chest to ward off the shiver that starts in her bones. “No,” she says coldly, “I can’t love anyone.”

“Can’t, don’t, or won’t?”

Hisana shuts her eyes. She can’t say. Won’t say? She just _knows_ , knows it deep in her bones, that she will be always turn up wanting as a wife, even a lesser wife. 

_You couldn’t even manage the duty of a sister,_ a dark part of her hisses. 

Okuni takes Hisana’s hand in her own. They are warm, tender. “So, how are we going to play these rich people for all they’re worth?” She lifts a brow in challenge.

Hisana cracks an eyelid. “I don’t even know what they have commissioned us to do.”

“Oh, I know that part,” chirps Okuni. “Lord Heishi told me last night.”

“What?”

“Yep.” Okuni flutters a little, lost in thought. “We’re to instruct the young ladies of the Heishi and Kuchiki.”

Hisana’s brows shoot up at this. “Instruct them in _what_?”

“Lord Heishi told me that they wanted me to demonstrate proficient playing of the shamisen. I bet they’ll ask you for a dance lesson. Other than that?” She lifts a shoulder in the barest of shrugs. “I think we’re supposed to converse with them. He instructed me to entertain the women, which, _gotta say_ , a real first for me.”

It’s a real first for Hisana, too. Sure, she’s _danced_ in front of mixed company, but _entertain_ , as in conversation and service? Never. In all her time, Hisana has maybe— _maybe_ —spoken to a handful of highborn women. 

“What are we going to say to these women for _hours_ on end?” asks Okuni, wearing a quizzical brow. “What do these women even _do_ all day?”

A good question. 

As a courtesan, Hisana _must_ keep up with her patrons’ professions and interests. When she served Lord Yogi? She pored through endless Chamber measures to learn the tedium about tax policy. _Fun times_. For Tadahiro, whose true love—above all else—is _money_ , she educates herself on the market, interest rates, tax shelters, supply chain logistics, and general policies affecting the nobility’s ability to accumulate and maintain wealth that come out of the Chambers. For Lord Byakuya, she convinced someone to sell her old textbooks from the Academy so that she could learn the esoterica of zanpakutō, bakudō, hadō, and whatever else he might expect her to have at least conversant knowledge of.

Half of the success of being a courtesan is in the preparation. But, the preparation has a clear gender bias.

“Do they like cleaning?” Okuni proffers, shoulders drawing closer to her jaw.

“They have servants for that.”

“Right.” Okuni glances around. “Cooking?”

“They have chefs.”

“Gardening?”

“Landscapers.”

“Reading?”

Hisana pauses, “I think they can do that for themselves. But, what?” She can’t remember the last time she read for _pleasure_. At this point, she wouldn’t even know what she would read if she had the time to herself.

“Embroidery, maybe? I feel like Lord Heishi’s wife might sew.”

“Oh, that’s good. Do you sew?”

Okuni shakes her head. “You?”

“A little, but probably not up to their standards.” 

Okuni grimaces. “This is going to be a disaster. They’re going to wonder what their husbands are spending all the family money on if they make us carry a conversation.”

“Oh, I imagine they’ll hazard a _guess_.” 

Okuni giggles lightly into her sleeve, but, before she can respond, the litter stops. 

“I think we’re here,” Hisana murmurs, trying her hardest to get an eyeful of their surroundings from the gap in one of the boards. She sees nothing of use. Just the broad expanse of a worker’s back.

“Ever been here?” Okuni asks, cocking a brow.

Hisana shakes her head.

One of the bearers quickly helps them out of the litter. Hisana surveys the estate. It is _grand_. Stunningly _grand._ Even when envisioning the estate during Lord Byakuya’s stories, Hisana’s imagination proves to have been wholly uninspired. 

Verdant grass and gardens reach out for miles toward a thick wooded area. Hisana pauses and stares, feeling the forest pull the worry from her.

“First time?” asks one of the bearers, eying Okuni with a wolfish look.

“Yes,” she says, flicking her folding fan open and fluttering it. “That obvious?”

He grins slyly. “The manor is a maze so be careful. Wouldn’t want to wander into the Lord’s quarters.”

Hisana links her arm through Okuni’s before her friend has the chance to say something untoward in reply, “Come on,” she whispers, blood thundering in her head the moment she sets her eyes on the manor itself.

It’s beautiful. No, _elegant_. The lines are simple. The wooden frame is a clean shade of cypress. The storm shutters have been pulled open, revealing the wide outdoor corridor that laps the outside of the manor, the floors of which shine like glass. Hisana catches her and Okuni’s reflections in the wood as an attendant ushers them inside to a large room full of nobles. 

Hisana’s heart immediately shrivels inside her chest. So many beautiful patrician women dressed in fine silks linger in one another’s confidences in the center of the floor. The men largely stand at the periphery speaking to one another. The Kuchiki men all have a particular _look_ , tall and lean with sharp jawlines and gray eyes.

“It’s okay,” Okuni whispers, tugging at Hisana’s arm comfortingly. “You don’t even _want_ to impress these people.”

That’s where Okuni is wrong. Dead wrong. Hisana _wants_ this night to have a good start, middle, and end. It’s just . . . .

Hisana feels the sharp pull of another’s reiatsu plucking at hers. It’s not an essence she places immediately, but, following the draw, she finds Lord Ginrei Kuchiki standing at the front of the room. His sharp gaze fixes her, and he lifts his head. 

Hisana averts her eyes just in time to catch the flutter of a lady who the Captain summoned to his side. She is tall and slender, dressed in a deep mulberry kimono with a silvery and gold pine-branch design. Her hair—long and chestnut brown—goes unfettered, and, when she turns to follow the captain’s gaze, Hisana sees that she is a woman in her middle years. Her gaze is sharp, eyes shining like glittering agate.

Hisana feels her insides contract. _Byakuya’s aunt, Masuyo Kuchiki_.

The woman locks eyes with Hisana. Her head lulls to the side, and her mouth lengthens into a rictus grin. Petal-pink lips form around words, words that Hisana cannot hear.

“Okuni?” Hisana murmurs, voice eking out on a broken breath. Panic crowds her, urging her to flee.

Either ignoring Hisana or unable to hear her over the din of scattered conversations, Okuni waves delicately to someone just out of Hisana’s line of sight. “This way!” she calls to a faceless other, laughter in her voice.

Hisana gently pushes Okuni forward in the direction of the object of her attention, hopeful that they may escape Lady Kuchiki’s watchful eyes.

“Masao Kuchiki, please meet—” Okuni begins but she is swiftly interrupted.

“—Hisana,” the man’s voice yanks Hisana’s attention to her right. 

“Lord Masao Kuchiki,” stammers Hisana, somewhat surprised to see him outside of the Central 46 Compound.

“I hear that you will be returning to serve the Chambers soon.” Masao is unmistakably _young_ , younger than Byakuya Kuchiki, and, perhaps, even younger than Hisana. His eyes are wider, his face gentler, than the other Kuchiki. His demeanor, too, is affable. 

It’s easy to forget his family legacy when he speaks.

“Yes, sir,” Hisana bows her head politely.

“And you, Okuni? When’s your next term?”

Okuni giggles. “Oh, not for another year.” 

He offers them a kind smile. “It’s lovely that you both could make it. Although,” his lips slope down, “I very much doubt we will see the moon through all that cover.” His gaze lifts to the sky in full view through the open doors to the room. 

“Oh, dear, don’t be such a pessimist!” A sonorous female voice crashes over their small party.

Hisana doesn’t need to turn to know who stands behind her. She hadn’t been able to wade too far into the crush before they were discovered.

“Mother—” Masao says, nodding his head respectfully.

Okuni next bows, low and graceful.

Hisana wants to pretend she has gone invisible, feeling too leaden to move. But, she forces herself to take a few hesitant steps and bows. When she straightens, she is confronted by a radiant Masuyo Kuchiki.

“—may I introduce Okuni and Hisana, entertainers from the Third District?”

“Oh, yes, dear. _Entertainment_ , indeed. If you wouldn’t mind, I’m going to steal them from you for a moment.” Lady Kuchiki is two paces into her stride when she cuts a cold expectant look over her shoulder.

Both Hisana and Okuni follow quiet as lambs to slaughter.

“Our friends from the _Third_ ,” trills Lady Kuchiki.

Hisana doesn’t miss the insult embedded in her last word. She said the word “ _Third_ ,” like it was some distant, dirty place, like Hell had opened and coughed them up, like a gross hairball.

“Oh,” an older, _rounder_ , lady cried, clapping her hands together, “the _entertainment_.”

Hisana trades a cautious stare with Okuni. 

“Lady Heishi, would you do the honor of collecting the ladies from your party and meeting us in the far right corner of the courtyard, near the base of the diverted stream?” asks Lady Kuchiki.

“For the instructions?” says Lady Heishi.

Lady Kuchiki nods. “We can have them set up and show us all their _secrets_ ,” at this, Lady Kuchiki grins knowingly at Lady Heishi. “I will take the _entertainers_ to the spot.”

The color drains from Hisana’s face. _Secrets_ , she scoffs inwardly, as if two women from the Third had any secrets of interest to highborn women.

“No,” murmurs Lady Heishi, trying to blunt the impact of her next thought, “Hisana is going to dance for us, no?” Lady Heishi’s attention draws to Okuni. An unlucky guess, perhaps. Not that Hisana blames the lady. Okuni is the one dressed to conquer men’s better judgment. “It’ll be easier for her demonstrate on the tatami. Is there a spare room we could use?”

Lady Kuchiki’s grin widens, eyes aflame. “Of course. We can spare the Weeping Willow room for her.” A lifted hand is all it takes to summon an attendant to the lady’s side.

Hisana’s fingers curl into Okuni’s arm. Her fingernails dig into her friend’s heavy silks. They will be separated, and, at that prospect, fear, as sharp and sudden as a knife, stabs her in the chest. Her heart throbs, and she braces against an unladylike shiver.

After a few mumbled orders, the attendant nods and steps to Hisana’s side.

“Hisana, prepare yourself,” says Lady Kuchiki, gray gaze sliding to Hisana before slipping to Lady Heishi, “Lady Heishi, there is precious space in the Weeping Willow room. Invite whomever you wish. I’m sure the _instruction_ will be edifying.” She then waves her hand, as if she is swatting smoke from her face. 

The attendant responds by glancing down at Hisana. “Follow me, Miss.”

Somewhere deep in the maze of corridors and shoji doors of Kuchiki manor, the attendant leaves her to the quiet of a moderately sized room. Perhaps no more than twenty paces wide, thirty paces deep. A stately weeping willow tree spans across the back fusuma panels. The tree is warped, its branches twisted, as it reaches out at a tortured angle over a lake painted in muted grays and blues. A crane flies over the tree, its beak open wide. Hisana can almost hear the bird’s loud squawk.

Maybe this is the room in which they plan to strangle her. The tree’s bark reminds her of the throats of some of the girls who were fished out of the diverted river in the Third. Drowned girls, they would routinely declare, assigning the causes of death as suicides. Their necks, however, told a different story.

Hisana draws closer to the painted paper. Her eyes hungrily roving the interplay of line and paint, hoping to unravel its secrets. 

The crack of wood being pulled back, however, sends Hisana a few steps away from the painting. She turns to find seven women, Lady Heishi and Suiko among them. None of them bear the classical traits of the Kuchiki, the inky dark hair, the pale skin, the lithe frames. No, these women all appear to be from the Heishi clan. They are shorter, fuller of figure, and possess faces that are rounder, more traditionally feminine.

Suiko enters the room after her mother. Her green eyes take Hisana in with fluttering glances, as if Hisana is the sun, injurious if viewed too long or too directly. And, with the same wary stares that she receives from the Heishi ladies, Hisana watches them. Her fingers find the smooth wood of her folding fan tucked above her obi, and she withdraws it.

“I think this will do,” says Lady Heishi, clacking closed the door as the last of her group steps across the threshold. 

“No Kuchiki ladies?” asks one of the women. 

“No,” Suiko says, voice soft but forceful. “I think that’s okay, no?” She turns to her mother for confirmation.

“I don’t think the Kuchiki ladies will mind. They have all night to pester Hisana for a dance if they want one,” retorts Lady Heishi.

With that, several of the Heishi ladies assume an uneasy seiza. Hisana doesn’t miss the number of amused glances being traded around the room.

“You may continue to stand, Hisana,” instructs Lady Heishi as she sits.

Once everyone is settled, Suiko pans the room for a long moment before turning her attention meekly to Hisana. “Miss Hisana,” she begins, voice polite, “would you mind sharing a dance with us?” 

There is a vulnerability to Lady Suiko, glowing in her sweet youth, which makes Hisana feel _monstrous_. “Of course, milady.” She bows low. “Which dance would you like to see performed?”

Suiko glances at her mother, her lips twitching. She has a request, but she appears frightened by it.

“Don’t bother my child with such trifling questions. You’re the _touted_ expert in dance. You decide,” interjects Lady Heishi.

“No,” murmurs Suiko. “I—I,” she stammers a little, nerves unraveling, “I would like to see whichever one Lord Byakuya Kuchiki prefers.”

Hisana’s eyes close, and she inhales a few breaths. “That’s an easy one.” 

It isn’t, though. Lord Byakuya’s preferred dance is the opposite half of the dance she performed at the festival. There is an intimacy to that dance. It developed slowly over time, a rich conversation between dancer and audience expressed in movement. She has changed it for him, improving it each time. She wonders if the current iteration has broader appeal. She wonders if she should even try to perform it as he likes it. She wonders if she should risk the pain of exposing their intimacy so completely, imagining it will feel like playing the role of a clam being pried open for its pearl.

She decides to submit. A rejection of her dance is a rejection of him as well. If Suiko is to become his wife, she should know what her future husband prefers.

Hisana begins, thoughts swirling inside her head, as she imagines performing for that audience of one. She knows each step so well, like her lungs know how to draw air. The motions are careful and graceful. The fan does not break. Her feet and legs do not falter, and, when she finishes, she chooses Lady Suiko with her fan.

The lady’s head jerks to the side. Her brows bunch together, and the lines in her forehead deepen. She appears to be fighting back tears. “I can see why he likes that dance,” she says, voice thin and frayed.

“Sit down, _girl_ ,” commands Lady Heishi, snapping her own fan shut with an air of authority. 

Hisana sinks to her knees obediently.

“As you’ve probably gathered, we aren’t that interested in dance. Several of the girls here are accomplished enough; the rest of us are too old or are too disinclined toward the art.”

Hisana’s hands fist in the slack of silk across her thighs. She had a feeling that she wouldn’t actually be imparting any wisdom to the noblewomen. Or, at least, wisdom about art. 

“What would you like me to do—” Hisana begins, but is quickly cut off.

“—we want to know about the nature of your relationship with Byakuya Kuchiki and his nature as well,” states Lady Heishi.

Hisana’s chest heaves a little at this. Her mind goes blank. She never thought to prepare any clever answers for this line of inquiry, never expected this sort of directness from noblewomen. Instead, she stares, gaping in cold numbness.

“Well?” Lady Heishi raises a brow archly. “Are you Lord Byakuya Kuchiki’s whore, or no?”

“I—I,” it’s Hisana’s turn to stammer, not wanting to leave the wrong impression, “I wouldn’t characterize our relationship in such terms.”

Lady Heishi gives her a disbelieving look. “Do you exchange money for sex or not?” 

Hisana thinks Lady Heishi is being clever, using reductivism to reach an unimpeachable conclusion. But, the Lady assumes too much. “No, Lord Byakuya Kuchiki does not pay for sex.”

Suiko’s eyes widen, and her back straightens from the despairing hunch that sloped her shoulders just moments ago. Lady Heishi exchanges confused glances with several of the ladies in the party. The room vibrates with a strange sort of excitement. Relief washes over the Heishi women, as if perhaps this was all just a giant misunderstanding.

Lady Heishi’s eyes narrow. “Then, what, _precisely_ , is your connection with the young lord?”

“I’m his courtesan, true,” Hisana answers, voice soft, “but not all men are interested in carnal pleasure alone.” Indeed, _most_ of the men that Hisana entertains cannot afford the three visits necessary for such services to be available to them. The men pay dearly for what amounts to be little more than a lively dinner party.

“Then, what do you _do_ in such instances?” Lady Heishi’s skepticism only intensifies.

“We converse. Sometimes I entertain him with dance or the koto. He likes calligraphy and shogi, and poetry. He takes his duties to his family and unit seriously, and, much of the time, he sits quietly listening to music with an occupied mind. He’s kind and generous, but demanding. Demanding of himself and of those he cares for. But, he has always been a proper gentleman in my company.” Her time with him has been a _dream_ , she realizes upon reflection.

Suiko lets out a relieved sigh. Her eyes flutter closed. Hisana knows that expression. It’s one of hope.

“Is he inclined toward women, though?” comes Lady Heishi’s next question. 

“I believe so,” answers Hisana, hesitantly. She doesn’t want this line of thought to go farther. She has done well enough begging Lady Heishi’s initial question without resorting to outright lies.

“Has he shown you any affection?”

Hisana scrutinizes Lady Heishi carefully. “He is a busy man with much to do; sharing his time with me is a display of affection, I suppose.”

The traces of skepticism that wrinkled Lady Heishi’s face melt, and she turns to her daughter. “Any questions, Suiko?”

“Did it take long for Lord Byakuya Kuchiki to warm to you?”

Hisana smiles sweetly. “He’s a quiet man, but if you pay more attention to his actions than his silence, you’ll find his heart.” 

The hardness of Lady Heishi’s stare softens as she examines Hisana. “Let’s go learn about shamisen,” she mutters under her breath, turning to the women. “I believe the other ladies are in the courtyard.” 

Hisana watches, pensive, as the Heishi ladies move to the door. She vaguely notices their silks flickering under the dim lantern lights as she considers whether her prevarication will end the test, if whether she has passed the night. Drunk on this hope, Hisana does not notice Lady Heishi waiting for her by the door.

“Come, come, Hisana,” she says, fanning herself, “I’m sure the Kuchiki ladies will wish to _converse_ with you, given your purported skills.”

_Oh, right. The Kuchiki ladies._

Hisana pulls herself up and follows the line of giggling Heishi women to the courtyard. 

The vast majority of Kuchiki ladies, and some Heishi ladies, are seated in neat rows in front of Okuni, who, when Hisana arrives, is plucking her shamisen and entertaining the ladies with a story.

Hisana slips away from the coterie of Heishi ladies and finds comfort in the shade of a small maple tree; its limb droop, heavy with leaves. She braces her shoulder against the trunk of the tree and watches Okuni’s shamisen lesson, unable to hear much in the way of instruction over the whine of a few poorly tuned shamisen. 

Maybe this won’t go as poorly as she suspected. If she stays hidden, keeps a low profile, she might be able to escape without much shame to nurse when she returns to the Peony House. Again, hope bubbles in her chest, and, again, with a stray glance, it bursts when she sees two teenaged Kuchiki ladies spying her, giggling, before scattering like cherry blossoms after being caught.

She can handle giggling teenagers, she tells herself.

“My shamisen broke!” cries a woman in annoyance. “You wouldn’t know how to fix it?”

Hisana turns to find a young dark-haired lady standing an arm’s length away. She is dressed in a light blue kimono with a subdued cloud pattern across the hems. While beautiful, she does not possess either the severity of the Kuchiki women or the roundness of the Heishi ladies. Gripped in her hands like a weapon is her instrument. One of the silk strings trails down, likely having snapped after mis- or over-use. 

“You’ll need a new string, I’m afraid.”

“That’s what I thought,” the woman huffs a little to herself, but, before stepping away in defeat, she stops and inspects Hisana more thoroughly. “Goodness, where are my manners?” she exclaims tapping her forehead lightly with her fan, “My name is Miyako,” she says and bows.

Hisana returns the bow and gives her name softly. 

Miyako’s brows rise at this. “Oh, so you’re the _infamous_ courtesan from the Third District?” 

Hisana somehow gets the sense that Miyako already _knew_ this before the introduction. “And, you’re Lord Shiba’s fiancée.” 

“I _am_.” Miyako tilts her head back at this. “Lord Shiba frequent the Third often?” 

Hisana chuckles lightly. “I know _of_ Lord Shiba through mutual acquaintances. Captain Ukitake may have mentioned the wedding preparations over dinner last night. Or, was it Captain Shiba?”

Miyako smiles and turns to lean her broken instrument against the bole of the maple. “Oh, yes. Poor Captain Ukitake, I’m sure he knows more about wedding planning than he ever hoped to learn as a single man.” 

“How serendipitous to make your acquaintance,” Hisana murmurs. 

“It seems we have a few mutual connections between us,” notes Miyako, her keen brown eyes reflecting the soft oranges of the twilight that begins to fall around them.

“Are you very familiar with the Heishi or Kuchiki?” asks Hisana.

“I’m a cousin a million times removed from Suiko. I’m sure I have some distant Kuchiki relation, as well.” Miyako straightens a little as she considers Hisana. “But it wasn’t Suiko’s invitation that brought me here,” she adds with a knowing wink. 

Hisana’s heart jumps a little, unsure of what to make of Miyako’s statement. 

“Tell me,” Miyako begins, threading her arm around Hisana’s, “do you happen to like archery?”

Hisana’s eyes widen a little at the question. “We learn the sport in the Third.” She won’t commit to _liking_ it, especially since she isn’t very good with the weapon. 

“Would you mind attending my class on it? Lord Kuchiki asked me, and, really,” her head lulls to the side as she glances back at the ladies packing up their instruments, “I don’t think it’s going to be a very popular diversion until the moon comes out. The Kuchiki women, especially, don’t seem to be interested in anything remotely related to the squads.”

“Of course,” Hisana says shyly, “I must admit, I’m pretty terrible at it.”

“Great! I love a challenge.”

They make it about a yard before Okuni’s voice stops Hisana in her tracks.

“Hisana! Don’t you _dare_ leave me with those captious bi—”

Hisana turns just in time for Okuni to realize one of those purportedly “captious bitches” has hold of her arm.

“—those _captivating beauties_ , I mean,” Okuni quickly changes course with a winning smile.

Miyako laughs into her sleeve. “An insult richly deserved for someone, I’m sure.”

“Apologies,” Hisana says to herself, “Okuni this is Lady Miyako, Lord Shiba’s fiancée. Lady Miyako, Okuni.”

Both women exchange quick pleasantries.

“Do you know anything about archery?” asks Miyako, eyes on Okuni.

“I know I’m _bad_ at archery,” Okuni retorts with a light snort.

“Would you like to learn to be better at it, then?”

Okuni’s lips purse together, as if the question proves to be an unpleasant one. “I’m a pretty bad student,” she warns.

“Probably not half as bad as you think,” Miyako says with confidence.

“ _Eh_ ,” squeaks Okuni. “Pretty bad.”

Crossing a small bridge, Hisana finds that targets have already been set up. Little stands forged from bamboo holds a number of bows and quivers. When they reach the makeshift shooting range, Miyako hops to the front, as if this is the happiest moment of the party for her. “Okay,” she begins, “how long has it been since you shot?”

Hisana glances askance at Okuni. “A few years for me.”

“They sort of kicked me out of the class. Like, my first class,” answers Okuni.

“Alright, that’s fine. You probably had a temperamental teacher,” Miyako says soothingly, “we can start with you—”

“Miyako, you came!”

Hisana’s heart sputters at the sound of the voice calling from behind her. Her whole body flashes hot before going numb. Frozen, she does not move, can’t move. Her nerves have frosted over.

“Lord Byakuya Kuchiki,” Miyako greets with a low bow. “I was just beginning the demonstration. Have you met my two students? This is Okuni.” Miyako gestures gracefully to Okuni, who immediately bows, placing her hand against her heart as she does so. 

“A pleasure, Lord Kuchiki,” she says in a breathy drawl.

Hisana glares at her friend for a moment.

“And, this here is—” before Miyako can introduce Hisana, Hisana turns to Lord Byakuya.

“Hisana,” he speaks her name just a moment before Miyako can.

When their eyes meet, Hisana’s heart squeezes hard in her chest. He stands dressed in a deep burgundy kosode and gray hakama. Tucked in his obi is a gray fan. His long black hair is tied back, and his cheeks are sun-kissed likely from the hours he has spent training.

“I take it you’ve met Miss Hisana,” notes Miyako, sarcasm lacing her voice.

“Intimately,” he says, before realizing the subtext of his response, “I mean, we are intimately acquainted,” he adds, in a rare moment of fluster.

Hisana turns just in time to see Okuni sucking in her cheeks and exchanging meaningful glances with Miyako, who appears amused by this slightly ruffled version of Lord Byakuya.

“Well, great timing,” teases Miyako. Grabbing Lord Byakuya by the hem of his sleeve, she pulls the young lord closer to their party. “Lord Kuchiki will make a fine model since he won last year’s annual archery competition. I will show you what is so great about his framing.”

Before Lord Byakuya can utter a single word in protest, Miyako has already stuffed a bow into his hands and offers him an arrow. 

He glances over at Hisana sheepishly.

She smiles encouragingly at him and gives an approving nod of her head. 

Then, he does something that Hisana has never personally witnessed. As he turns to the target, his face goes flush with blood.

 _Lord Byakuya is blushing?_ Hisana’s eyes widen, surprised.

Her realization is also shared by Miyako, who grins slyly at the young lord. She stops short of _teasing him_ , but Hisana can tell the temptation is a hard one to resist. 

Before Miyako can give any commentary, Lord Byakuya has quickly nocked and released his arrow. It shoots through the air, hitting the target squarely in the bull’s eye. 

“Lord Kuchiki is _modest_ ,” ribs Miyako. “If he would be so kind as to hold the position long enough for me to explain it so the students might observe.”

Lord Byakuya cuts Miyako a scathing glare, but he complies. Begrudgingly. 

“See,” Miyako begins with Lord Byakuya’s feet, “a nice neutral stance. Feet are roughly shoulder-width apart with knees slightly bent. They are perpendicular to the arrow.” She moves up to the hip. “When Lord Kuchiki moves into full-draw, his hips are parallel with the arrow.”

Lord Byakuya moves into full-draw, loosening the bolt. It hits the next concentric circle on the target.

“Just one more,” Miyako says sweetly, handing him another arrow.

He sighs, but obliges her request.

“Next, torso position.” Miyako smirks. “Torso is straight, collar bone is parallel to the arrow. Lord Kuchiki is not bent forward or backward; he is perfectly centered.” Miyako steps back and examines him. “Shoulders, too, are nice and even. The forearm of the release arm is parallel, the elbow on his bow arm is pointed outward and at a slight downward angle away from the bow. Head is straight, chin level to the ground, and Lord Kuchiki anchors the string below the jaw. _Lovely form_ , Lord Kuchiki.”

“ _Indeed_ ,” Okuni says on a low breath, earning her another glare from Hisana.

The arrow flies through the air, and hits the third concentric circle with a _crack_.

Miyako nods approvingly when Lord Byakuya steps back and hands her the bow. “Okuni, you said you needed some help. Step right up!”

Lord Byakuya draws to Hisana’s side. 

Trying her best, Hisana keeps her gaze steady on the two women. Blood thunders in her head, eclipsing all other sound, when she feels the heat of his hand against hers. It is a small touch, demure, even, and shielded from anyone milling nearby whose names aren’t Okuni or Miyako.

“Your form was very nice, Lord Byakuya,” her voice cracks when she glances up at him. When he meets her gaze, she feels a private heat well up inside her. 

His lips part, but he doesn’t have the chance to get the words out when a loud _thwap_ sets off a crescendo of chaotic noises: cups crashing to the ground, a few gasping breaths, and a wheezy moan.

“I’m alive!” creaks a voice.

Hisana follows the sounds to find the elderly Kuchiki steward kneeled in the grass, holding his serving tray up as a shield. An arrow with red and green feathers sticks out from the wood of the tray. One of the nearby maids rushes to his side and helps him up.

“See, this is why I was kicked out of archery class,” grumbles Okuni. “I think my vision isn’t so great. A lack of depth perception or something.”

Miyako swiftly apprehends the bow from Okuni. “Well, ordinarily, I don’t believe in quitting on students, but, in this case, I think you’re going to need a little more help than there are hours of daylight left.” She then turns to Hisana expectantly. “Miss Hisana, would you kindly?”

Hisana glances at Lord Byakuya for a moment. She hesitates, waiting for him to let go of her hand.

“I’ll instruct Miss Hisana,” Lord Byakuya announces, “Wouldn’t want to maim another servant,” he adds in his patented deadpan tenor.

“I’m quite alright, Lord Kuchiki!” the steward reassures him as he brushes the grass from his uniform.

Taking Miyako’s wide-eyed expression of shock as assent, Lord Byakuya pulls Hisana along after him.

 _Oh, dear gods, no_ , is all she can think to herself. Her blood pressure jumps up. She can feel her pulse throbbing in her throat. Her head pounds. Her heart is racing, and she is fairly certain she has broken out into a cold sweat.

“I’m not particularly good,” she mutters under her breath, receiving both the bow and an arrow.

“Don’t worry,” says Lord Byakuya, confidently, “I’ll show you.”

Miyako folds her arms across her chest and watches with a look of bemusement. 

Hisana holds the bow daintily, as if it may grow a head and attack her. She knows how to get into a somewhat passable form. She has always managed to hit the board, if not the target, on her past attempts. 

Getting into position, she feels Byakuya’s body envelop hers. He nudges her feet a little farther apart with his right foot. Next, his hands cup her hips, bringing them against his, and squares them for her.

At the feeling of him against her, Hisana’s vision completely cuts out. She has no idea how to react. In public. In front of his family. Is he trying to torture her?

“You’re blushing,” he murmurs into her ear as he leans down to adjust the line of her shoulders.

 _Blushing?_ Blushing is the least of her worries. Right then, she wonders if this experience might kill her.

“Pull back,” he says, fingers ghosting along the line of her release arm.

Hisana does as asked, moving into full-draw.

Lord Byakuya sights the bow for her before giving her the command. “Let go.”

She fires the arrow. It flies forward, splitting the air with a buzz, and hits the target dead center. There is a first time for everything, she muses, turning happily to the young lord. She beams at him.

That’s when she sees _them_. A small crowd of Kuchiki and Heishi ladies have gathered nearby. All of them watching Lord Byakuya as he disentangles himself from Hisana. None of them appear particularly _thrilled_ with his method of tutelage.

Hisana shudders inside her robes. This hasn’t gone well, she notes. 

“How unfair!” Okuni grumbles, likely speaking on behalf of all of the non-Kuchiki ladies that crowd their party. “I nearly killed the _butler_ , and _she_ gets the Winner of the Annual Archery Competition’s _personal_ instruction?”

Lord Byakuya cuts Okuni a cool glance. “He’s the _steward_ , not a _butler_ ,” he says in a tone that heavily implies that Okuni lacks the breeding to know the difference, “and, as Miyako noted, there aren’t enough hours in a _lifetime_ to train you.”

“She said hours in a _day_ —”

“—actually, I said hours left _today_ —”

“—it doesn’t really matter, does it? My student won—”

“—won what?”

“—yeah, I wasn’t aware this was a _competition_ —”

“—everything is a competition—”

Hisana half listens to the bickering that ensues between Okuni, Miyako, and Lord Byakuya as she pumps her hand open and closed. Pain twirls down her arm, closely followed by a thin stream of blood. She pulls up her sleeve revealing a small cut to her forearm. 

“Hisana,” murmurs Lord Byakuya. She catches him examining the laceration. Concern clouds his eyes.

“It’s nothing, really,” she says, letting the sleeve fall back. “Probably happened when the string slapped back.”

His fingers encircle her wrist, and he turns to Miyako. “I will take Hisana to get a bandage at the manor,” he says hastily.

Hisana catches Miyako’s confused response, her brows lifting as if to ask him why he’s telling _her_ this.

Hisana knows why he said it aloud, though. Plausible deniability is why. If anyone asks or _suggests_ , Miyako, Okuni, and the sea of ladies they are currently parting on the way to the manor will have a ready-made answer that passes scrutiny.

She can almost hear it: _The entertainment for the evening injured herself, and the kind lord is tending to her. Won’t he make an adoring husband?_

When they reach a wing of the manor that Hisana swears came into existence just as they stepped over the threshold, Lord Byakuya quickly closes the garden doors and doors leading deeper into the manor. There is a frantic cadence to his movements, as if he might confess something untoward to her right then.

Hisana glances around for a moment, feeling the sting of the laceration. “I think the bleeding has stopped,” she says, vaguely recalling her Mistress’s instruction not to _bleed_ anywhere on the premises.

“What are you doing here?” he asks, turning away from the interior doors. His gray eyes probe her, demandingly. 

Hisana isn’t sure what he wants from her. 

“I decided to take a very long walk into a very deep pit, teeming with vipers,” she retorts, sardonically. “Love them. They’re my favorite animal.”

The iciness of his gaze melts, and he shakes his head. “That’s not what I meant,” he sighs, turning to face the line of shoji leading to the garden. One of the doors is ajar, letting a slim rectangle of burnt umber twilight into the room.

He leaves it.

“I meant: Do you know why you’re here? Why my family brought you here?” His iciness quickly dissolves into watery concern.

She tilts her head, unsure of which tact to take. “They brought me here as a test. A test to determine how well all three of us interact.” Or, at least that’s what Hisana _thought_ before her interrogation at the hands of both Lady Heishi and Suiko. However, in order for this test to work, wouldn’t Suiko need to know the extent of the arrangement? She clearly didn’t.

Perhaps Lord Heishi wasn’t lying when he said his family spoiled Suiko. Maybe the terms of such emotional spoiling included protecting her from unpleasant circumstances. 

“Do you know why?” he asks, closing the distance between them. Pain tangles the lines of his face, amplifying them in the shadows of that dimly lit room.

Hisana looks away. She doesn’t want to say the word. She really doesn’t. It burns with the same intensity as a doomed effort. “They are considering me for your concubine,” she murmurs.

“Is that what you want, Hisana?” he asks quietly, placing a hand on her shoulder.

She wants to tell him, ‘no.’ She wants to tell him so many things, but she knows she isn’t deserving of a choice in this matter. She made her choice when she abandoned her sister in the dead of winter to a couple no sane person should have trusted. A couple who in exchange for a promise to care after her sister sold Hisana to a Shinigami in order to satisfy a debt. It was then her contract was written, written in blood, in hunger, in fear, in outraged disdain. It was a burden to be performed, like a penance, to absolve her of her failure to secure her sister’s happiness and future.

Without that burden, she thinks, she will have no means to atone for her actions. Suffering is necessary. Wanting for oneself is weakness. 

_Wanting for others, however . . . ._

“I don’t want to bring shame to you,” she finally answers, hands clenching into fists at her side.

“Is that what they told you?” He inches nearer. She can feel the warmth of his body sink through her layers of silk. 

“Isn’t that what would happen?” her head lists to the side. 

“My connection to you would never bring me shame, only immense happiness.” He then touches his forehead to the back of her head. 

Her brows pull together so hard she can feel the burn of muscle tensing her face. She stuffs down a sob, shoves it deep, deep inside her chest, where it nearly strangles her. 

Tense and stiff, she turns to face him. Her hands unclench, and she reaches up to caress the purple bruise that had blossomed over his eye. He never flinches at her touch, never flutters, never averts his gaze. He is steady in his regard for her. Steady and fierce.

“Does Lord Byakuya want me for his concubine?” she asks, searching him for signs of disgust or irritation.

None ever come.

“No,” he says, voice low and full of gravel, “I do not desire a concubine.”

Relief eases the tension in her brows, and she smiles gently up at him. “His courtesan, then?” the question is a hopeful one. But, she has been bracing herself for his rejection for months now. She somehow thinks that no matter the preparation, she will never be adequately fortified when it comes.

She is correct when she hears him speak the word, “No.”

It hits her hard like a bludgeon to the chest. The breath is knocked clean out of her, and, she withdraws deep inside herself, hoping to find a place in the pitch of her mind to escape. Her hand slips from his face, but he catches it before she can bring it back down to her side.

He plants a kiss in the middle of her palm before returning it to his cheek. “I’d prefer you be something far greater to me,” he says, eyes shut, a ragged breath heats her wrist as he presses his lips to her pulse point.

“Lord Byakuya,” she murmurs, desperately pleading ignorance, holding on more readily to his denial of her services as a courtesan than to the desire he just expressed. Recklessly, she steps into his arms, relishes the way he folds himself around her. His warmth staving off the chill of a premature death of association.

She feels his lips against the top of her head. She feels how his heart races against her cheek, how it nearly matches her own rhythm. She feels the words begin to form on his lips, knowing what comes next, but not wanting to hear them, not believing herself deserving enough yet.

“I lov—”

Before he can finish, the manor rocks against the suddenness of a thunderclap crashing overhead. A determined gust of wind follows, blowing in through the crack in the door, snuffing out the guttering lantern keeping them from being swallowed by shadows. 

Pulling her robes tightly against her chest, Hisana steps away from Lord Byakuya to investigate the garden. A thick damp wind charges her, catching in her silks, as she opens the door wider. Rain falls in sheets across the courtyard, a heavy gray veil. Most of the guests have fled into the manor, leaving a few servants to scurry around and fetch the remnants of their merrymaking.

“How long has it been raining?” she wonders, turning to Lord Byakuya.

He shakes his head. 

“How long do you think before they notice we’re missing?”

His eyes close and an expression of abject resignation smooth the lines of his face.

The transformation is so sudden as to concern her. Her eyes fly to the door to catch a long, dark shadow floating across the shoji. She knows that reiatsu.

 _Lord Ginrei Kuchiki_.

As the master of the house, Lord Kuchiki does not knock or announce his presence. He merely draws the door back and scowls at what he finds.

“Byakuya. Hisana.” A sharp note of disapproval undulates beneath his otherwise calm deadpan.

Lord Byakuya and Hisana are quick to offer up polite greetings to the Lord, who meets each with an apathetic stare. The same apathetic stare. Both times.

“The ladies informed me that Hisana injured herself and you took off to see to her wounds,” he says, fixing Lord Byakuya with a glance. “As she does not appear to be in the throes of death, I take it all is well?” 

Lord Byakuya nods his head. “Yes, Grandfather.”

“Then, were you planning on keeping Hisana cooped up in your chambers for the rest of the evening, Byakuya?” 

Hisana’s eyes widen when she realizes exactly _where_ Byakuya has brought her. 

“It began to rain,” observes the young lord by way of explanation.

“So, I’ve noticed,” Lord Kuchiki’s replies, “The party has moved inside, where they will remain until the rain abates. I encourage you both to join them.” 

He turns to leave, but stops short to note, “Your betrothed and her family are already inquiring about your whereabouts.” Lord Kuchiki gives Hisana an acknowledging glance, his expression softening for a beat, and then he is gone.

Hisana chews on her bottom lip for a moment. Her palms heat slightly from the anxiety provoked from the Lord’s _suggestion_ that they return to the party. She cools them against the wood frame of the door leading to the garden, clacking it shut.

“So, these are your rooms?” she asks, glancing back at Lord Byakuya.

Lord Byakuya shifts a little, as if his robes have suddenly gone scratchy and coarse. “How do you find them? I mean,” he begins, gaze averted to the straw weaving of the tatami, “Are they to your liking?”

He asks the question with such earnestness, Hisana’s sly look slides off her face. “Well, I’ve only seen the one, and it seems that our presence is demanded at the party.”

“I could show you the others.”

“But, Lord Captain—”

“If time had been of the essence, he would’ve escorted us back, himself,” says Lord Byakuya with the authority of a man well-practiced at reading the tealeaves of his grandfather’s moods. “He is giving us a moment.”

Hisana studies Lord Byakuya for a long moment. He looks boyish in his insecurity, as if he is asking her to judge a piece of his heart. A piece he holds dearly.

Offering him a kind glance, Hisana loops her arm around his, “Then, I would very much like to see the lord’s chambers.”

He takes her on a quick tour, which, for Hisana, begins and ends at the library. Not that she considers herself a bibliophile, but because the room is an absolute treasure trove of her lover. She is convinced that if she lingers long enough, she can plumb the depths of his thoughts quicker than waiting for him to reveal them to her.

She starts with the books. The room’s shelves are a rich dark walnut, stuffed full of tomes, epics, poetry, folklore, history, and tactical guides. The arrangement of the books is mostly neat, each ordered according to subject and alphabetized by author. On closer inspection, Hisana notes that while the tactical section has a hasty, almost slap-dashed organization, the epic tomes of love and bravery are neatly arranged, as if they had long been forgotten. She grins, beginning to think that the neater the arrangement, the more unloved the books. 

Across from the glorious bookshelves, however, is, in her opinion, the _true_ centerpiece. Spanning the entire wall is a beautiful painting of a sakura and a plum blossom tree tangling together in the wind. The colors are subtle, but the interplay of line and subject convinces her that she is in love. Her whole heart spasms as she examines it more closely.

“We may be able to steal a few additional moments, if you’d like to see more.”

“No,” she says, drawing closer to the fusuma, eyes hungry to understand the painting in greater detail. “I’ve already made my judgment.”

“And how do you find it?”

Hisana turns to Lord Byakuya, and, without preamble, she reaches up and kisses him. It is soft, almost a ghost of the past kisses they’ve shared, and when she pulls away, she answers him more directly. 

“ _Beautiful_.” 

She then turns to leave.

In tense silence, they trace the halls back to the party. Their hands are loosely interwoven until they hear the raucous sounds of overlapping conversations, laughter, and snorts. 

They do not enter the room together, so as to not rouse further suspicions. Instead, Hisana enters the large room from the south, and Byakuya from the east.

She pauses briefly, watching her lover be quickly swamped by the Heishi family. He stands stiffly, his keen eyes dim, and his stare becomes distant, ever-removed from his current circumstances. It’s like watching frost overtake a vine. Its vibrancy diminishes until it goes dormant, lost to further growth.

“Hisana!” calls Okuni, her voice ripping through the din of other conversations. She waves Hisana over to where she is perched, beside Miyako, who is speaking rather fondly with Masao Kuchiki.

“Where were you all this time?” asks Okuni in mock indignation.

“Yeah, how is your arm?” Miyako chimes in.

“Better,” Hisana replies quickly.

“Were you injured, Miss Hisana?” Masao asks kindly.

“Lord Byakuya Kuchiki was instructing her with the bow, and the string got her,” Miyako explains. “He took her inside to clean her up.”

“Lord Byakuya is in attendance?” Masao sounds genuinely astonished to learn this. 

“He’s over there,” murmurs Hisana, tilting her head to the wall to their right. She hasn’t lost sight of him since entering the room.

“Oh, please pardon me, I must go and express my respects to the lord on his upcoming nuptials.” Masao offers a tidy bow before taking his leave.

Hisana, Okuni, and Miyako fall into a quiet conversation about the ordeal of noble marriages. Hisana mostly distracts herself with her fan, which she flutters at intermittent intervals. Absently, she glances over to Lord Byakuya who is watching her slyly over his shoulder.

She flits her fan slightly, wondering if he might have any skill in discerning her meaning. At least among the courtesan, starting with the young attendants, the fan was an indispensable means of communication. For the most part, senior courtesans used it to direct the younger attendants without resorting to breaking the flow of conversation. If the courtesan required more tea or sake, she could easily request it with a few beats of her fan. Whole conversations could also be carried with a fan with other courtesans or geisha, if the patron was enough of a bore.

To her surprise, he responds in kind.

Before she can fully test how conversant he is, a loud clattering of cups rips her attention away. At arm’s length, a servant has fallen, sending cups of sake and tea careening across a large section of the floor.

Instinctively, Hisana, Okuni, and Miyako rush to the woman’s side. Miyako attends to the woman’s well-being, while both Hisana and Okuni begin collecting the fallen and broken items before anyone can accidently stumble upon them. 

In the middle of Hisana’s fetch quest of finding the broken shards of _priceless_ Kuchiki porcelain, the entire room goes still.

So still that, when Hisana goes to place the shards on the serving tray, the _tink, tink_ of the porcelain hitting the wood echoes through the room.

Wide-eyed, Hisana glances up to find Lord Ginrei Kuchiki looming over the foursome of women. His blue eyes trail from each woman before stopping at Miyako, who is tying a bandage around the woman’s ankle to stabilize it.

“The Shiba are fortunate to have such a kind, well-mannered lady enter into their family. It’s rare to find young women who demonstrate such beneficence. Well done, Miyako,” he says, issuing praise just as cuttingly as he issues his instructions.

 _Pointed praise_ , Hisana thinks. 

Mistress uses the same tactic. It’s meant more to demean whoever is found deficient in the praised trait, which, judging by the number of mortified faces, could have been any of the noblewomen sitting in proximity to the maid’s unfortunate blunder.

“Your words are a kindness, Captain Kuchiki,” Miyako murmurs softly, head bowed.

Two manservants rush forward to clear the remaining mess. But, the pall Lord Kuchiki cast hangs heavy over the guests for a few long, silent moments.

The three return to their seats, near the door. Miyako’s cheeks flush a bright red, likely sensitive to the number of stares she received after Lord Kuchiki’s commendation of her. Hisana glances back at Lord Byakuya who watches them intently, seated next to his fiancée. Suiko appears slightly unnerved at Lord Kuchiki’s veiled meaning. 

The stale quiet, however, is broken by the clarion voice of Lady Kuchiki. “Firstly, thank you for joining us tonight. Even though it decided to storm—”

Dread begins to crawl through Hisana’s veins, and she glances over at Okuni, who appears to share her same reservations. 

“What do you think she has planned for us, now?” Okuni whispers into Hisana’s ear. 

“—after much convincing Lady Suiko has agreed to share with us her talents on the shamisen—” continues Lady Kuchiki.

Hisana can feel the heat bleed from her cheeks. 

“You don’t think she would?” Okuni asks, leaning forward.

“She absolutely would,” Miyako replies, eyes flashing to the Kuchiki matriarch seated near the wall across from them.

“She’d make it a competition?” Okuni continues in disbelief.

“Everything here is a competition,” Miyako retorts with a heavy breath.

“I don’t play the shamisen well,” Hisana admits, searching Okuni’s face. “Not well enough to perform in front of an audience. I can’t—” she shakes her head, lost for words.

Okuni takes Hisana’s face in her hands. “You must. It’s alright. If you fail, it’ll be fine. I promise you, anyone in this room worth your time won’t hold it against you.”

Applause breaks out, and Hisana turns her attention to Lady Suiko, who moves timidly to the front of the room. She takes the shamisen offered to her, and, after a few quiet moments, she begins. Her playing is very lovely, lively, full, and dynamic.

Hisana will not be able to match it. Not if she had been practicing every day for a year.

Hisana glances back at Lord Byakuya, who sits stone-faced, a glacier of a man.

“This will be okay,” Okuni says, squeezing Hisana’s hand, “Pick a short song. The ending comes faster that way.”

When Suiko completes her piece, another round of applause crashes over the room, nearly matching the intensity of Hisana’s dread.

“Now,” Lady Kuchiki says, craning her head to get a better look at both Okuni and Hisana, “we should compare our homegrown talent here in Seireitei to that of the flowers from the _Third_ District.”

Hisana again cuts a glance to Lord Byakuya, who catches her look. She wants to apologize, and, flicking her fan open, she hopes he understands her message.

His attention flits to his aunt. His eyes narrow, but he waits. Patiently. Cautiously. 

“Hisana, dear, would you mind entertaining us?” Lady Kuchiki produces a second shamisen for Hisana’s use, and she gestures for Hisana to come to the front of the room.

“I prefer to hear the koto,” interjects Lord Byakuya in a tenor that brooks no argument. 

Hisana exhales a small breath. She is hesitant to hope, but the koto is an instrument that she can work with. 

“Byakuya,” his aunt tuts in a disapproving tone, “how would we be able to compare such different instruments as to ascertain the superiority of the player?”

“Perhaps I’m not interested in the superiority of the player of an instrument I don’t prefer.”

“Byakuya, you’re being dramatic.”

“I’m being forthright. Let Hisana play the koto.”

Hisana’s attention shoots to Lord Ginrei Kuchiki who watches with a smirk, eyes averted to the small cherry wood table in front of him. 

“Lord Kuchiki, implore Byakuya to capitulate in this matter.”

Lord Kuchiki’s gaze drifts to his daughter. Hisana sees the easy affection he holds for her when he says, “If imploring Byakuya got me anywhere, I dare say I could take a day off.”

Chuckles, well-earned or not, fill the room. Not even Hisana can hold back a smile at the jab when she turns to Lord Byakuya to find him sitting archly.

“Well, we haven’t a koto readily available, all we have is a shamisen. Lady Suiko was kind enough to oblige, I’m sure the _paid entertainer_ could do so as well.”

“Hisana,” Lord Kuchiki says, finding her among the crowd, “if you would kindly oblige my daughter’s fervent request for you to entertain us with an instrument that my grandson ardently dislikes?”

Hisana nods her head politely. Moving to the front of the room to retrieve the shamisen from Lady Kuchiki, she inhales deep breaths and swallows. Hard.

With the instrument in her hand, Hisana checks the strings to find one of them is loose, hanging-by-a-thread loose. Her heart sinks. If she had to wager a guess, this shamisen is Miyako’s broken shamisen, the one she set next to a tree, and has been badly repaired.

Hisana glances over at Suiko, still cradling the shamisen she used in her performance. The lady is as white as a sheet, and she rocks herself quietly, eyes set on the middle distance. 

Neither of them wants to be pawns in this game.

A game calculated for Hisana to lose.

Hisana heaves a heavy breath and resolves to do her damned best. Maybe she can make up for the lack of a string by playing particularly lively. 

She _nearly_ convinces herself that this might work out.

_Nearly._

Lively playing, however, can’t settle the score where talent is in short supply. To make matters worse, she hits the damned loose string. It breaks, predictably. A current of laughter flows through the song. At first, the chuckles and smothered giggles _mortify_ her. Hisana freezes, heart dropping like a stone to the pit of her stomach. 

Then, she realizes the opportunity in it. 

Hisana plays along, pretending that she is in on the extent of her horribleness with the instrument. This approach does her better. The performance becomes less of a recital and more of a conversation. A conversation where her terribleness is on full display, but self-awareness seems to breed good humor in the audience.

When she finishes, she can’t hear anything over the cacophony hammering away inside her head. She doesn’t know how she makes it back to her seat. All she knows is that when she takes seiza she is trembling. Trembling like a child who has been dunked into freezing lake water in the middle of winter. 

The warmth of Okuni’s hand registers, but barely.

“They gave you my broken shamisen didn’t they?” Miyako asks, words marching out of her mouth sharp and clipped. 

Hisana doesn’t react. She stares miserably ahead, praying her heart doesn’t implode in her chest. 

“ _Unbelievable_ ,” Miyako groans under her breath. “This family.”

Between Hisana’s public humiliation and when she finally retracts from the black wall of terror, they’ve apparently moved onto story-time. Ghost story-time from what Hisana can gather as she listens on. Fitting, she guesses, given the sizzle of lightning and the random claps of thunder that accompany the evening downpour. Even a few of the lanterns burn low, casting long, shadowy fingers across the shoji and fusuma. 

“It was a long, dark night—” a woman’s voice begins.

Hisana lifts her chest a little. Her breath comes without labor. Her body eases, muscles slowly unlocking. Okuni and Miyako listen, seemingly engrossed in the story.

Hisana glimpses Lord Byakuya from the corner of her eye, feeling his reiatsu beginning to thread a little through hers. She closes her eyes, leaning into it. It feels comforting, almost restorative. Apologetic, perhaps?

She turns her head to watch him for a moment, and he returns her stare with a quick wave of his fan. _This story is boring._

She grins. _I wasn’t paying attention,_ she answers back.

_Good. Don’t. Not worth your time._

Her grin lengthens. _What’s it about?_

_An idiot._

_How so?_

_She hasn’t weapons, wits, or a basic understanding of kido, and the monster is a hollow._

Hisana squeezes her eyes shut at that, suppressing the urge to giggle.

“—the monster emerges from the shadows. It drips shadows, with a skull of a man for a face, and a large gaping hole in his neck—” the woman continues.

 _Watch her run up the stairs_ , he notes.

Hisana shakes her head. _No mention of stairs yet._

“—the young girl runs into the house. Breath ghosting in front of her from the chill. Eyes open wide. She knows the monster is hot on her tail. The girl darts up the stairs—” 

_Maybe her zanpakutō is up the stairs_ , Hisana posits diplomatically.

_Maybe her brain is up there, too, if we’re making a wish-list._

“—chest heaving. Fear tightening around her throat. She turns to the beast as it crawls, step by step, toward her. She has nowhere to run—”

_I’m rooting for the hollow now._

Hisana presses her lips so hard together she swears she tastes the tang of blood. _How cruel. She of the heaving chest and little brain deserves a good ending._

_Team hollow._

“—she screams in horror and runs into an empty room. There are no windows. No beds. No closets. She turns, narrowly escaping the monster’s gnashing teeth—”

_Yes, run straight into its gaping maw and end this story._

_Do the hollows actually eat you?_ Hisana’s eyes widen a little at this and the implications she never considered when thumbing through pages of zanpakutō theory and the history of kidō. 

_If you leap into their mouths, they do._

_So, I take it that the first lesson at the Academy is not to run straight into their mouths?_

_I didn’t attend the Academy. That was my first lesson so it was probably taught year two there._

_Byakuya!_

Miyako cuts Hisana a warning glance that quickly trails to Lady Kuchiki, who is watching Byakuya with a scowl.

Hisana moves her fan to her left hand and flutters it a little. _We’re being watched._

His attention shifts to his aunt, and he closes his fan. 

Lady Kuchiki’s gaze drags to Hisana, who also tucks her fan in her lap. 

Satisfied, the Lady turns back to the Kuchiki storyteller just as a staid applause rises in the room.

Hisana glances at Miyako. “When do you think this event will end?”

Miyako tilts her head up. “It’s still coming down out there. The party may be stuck here for the night if the roads to the estate flood.”

Hisana’s lips part. “No.” This is the absolute _last thing_ she wants to hear. At this point, she rejoices at being sent to the Chambers. Being locked miles under ground sounds like a vacation in comparison.

“A lively tale,” Lady Kuchiki announces, “but I think I can do one better.” She turns her gray stare to Hisana, her lips thinning into a contemptuous smile. “It begins with a very silly girl. A girl who hasn’t the courage or moral fortitude to protect her own infant sibling after the tragic demise of her parents—”

Hisana reels back. Eyes wide. All of the air in her lungs expel in a muffled gasp. 

_How could this be?_

Part of her stares ahead, disbelieving. There is no way that Lady Kuchiki knows of what she did, of how she did it. She hasn’t told anyone but….

Her gaze flies to Byakuya, just as swift and sure as her arrow had been that afternoon. He doesn’t acknowledge her. No, his attention belongs wholly to his aunt. His lips part. His stare hardens. She sees the muscles in his jaw clench.

“—her parents were simple village people in a harbor town. Her father caught and sold fish, and her mother worked as a seamstress. They loved their two daughters greatly. Spoiling them with love and indulging them. It made the elder girl _dull_ , _lazy, incurious,_ but worse than all those things, it made her _deluded._ She believed herself clever, thrifty, and better than her station as the meager daughter of a fisherman.”

Hisana doesn’t remember much of her former life. She came to Inuzuri, however, able to read, write, do simple calculations, prepare rice, and flay fish.She could’ve been a simple fisherman’s daughter, or the daughter of almost any other tradesman. All she knows for sure of her former life is that she died cradling her infant sister from certain doom. She couldn’t have been more than ten years old when the wheel of fate dumped them in Inuzuri.

“Then, one day, the sea swallowed their tiny little house. The two girls survived the typhoon. Their parents, however, did not. Amid the wreckage and the ruin, the elder girl foraged, begged, and stole like the dimwitted raccoon that she was. But, it wasn’t enough. Could never be enough because the girl did not possess the spirit or the fire to _make it_. 

“Indeed, when her metal was tested she splintered. And, so it was, on a cold, snowy night, she leaves her undernourished, sickly sister amid the snowdrifts to face the sharp winds and ice of winter without a guardian.”

Hisana shivers. Her hand shakily closes into a fist. Her fingers itch to dig into the flesh of her palm, to prick the tender pads so as to remind her this is real; she is here; she is still alive.

It doesn’t work.

All she feels is the heavy weight of pain and regret. She wants to scream, to lash out, to end the story. For all the wrong that she did, she would have never set her sister in a snowbank to freeze to death. She didn’t do that. Would’ve never done that. She loves her sister. Prays that she still thrives, that the couple who sold her to the Shinigami held up their end of the deal, even though she knew then that placing any such hope in a soul in Inuzuri was foolish.

But, even now—through the pain and torture of coming to terms with what she had done—she knows now what she knew then: If she hadn’t done _something, anything_ to end the hunger, the aching, the constant threat of violent death, she was certain that she and her sister would’ve met a similar fate to the one they suffered in the World of the Living. Hisana had hung onto the babe then. Hung on and shielded her. When she arrived in Inuzuri, she still had the defensive wounds of the struggle that ended them. 

There was a lesson to be learned in that prior death. Hanging onto the babe beyond all reason hadn’t worked in the World of the Living, and it seemed to be a losing proposition in the criminal cesspool of Inuzuri.

It didn’t make the decision any easier. Abandoning her sister to that wretched couple, with their crooked teeth and crooked ways. How she wishes she had been enough, had enough, was swift enough to have kept her sister in her arms. To have raised her, loved her, held her close, and told her everything would be fine, that she was beloved above all else. Is still loved above all else.

But, Hisana wasn’t enough. She isn’t enough. She will never be enough. For anyone.

“The poor, silly girl heard the baby’s wails. Heard her cries of hunger, of pain, of neglect,” Lady Kuchiki continues, voice strengthening with each word, soaked through with a painful venom.

It’s a venom Hisana can’t resist. She remembers her sister’s cries when the Shinigami took her under threat of death. The babe had wailed and wailed and wailed. Sobbing as she had never done before. It must have been the food the couple had given her. She finally had enough strength to protest the conditions into which she had been placed, and she wasn’t about to let such strength go to waste.

Sometimes, Hisana wakes in a cold sweat, hearing that sound. The shrill mewl of her sister. She prays it’s a sign that her sister is still living, still fighting for her next meal, her next sip of water, her next warm bed.

“The elder sister, however, was unmoved by the baby’s anguished screams as death began to set in around her,” Lady Kuchiki opens her mouth, but finds herself abruptly interrupted.

“That’s enough,” Lord Byakuya’s voice breaks the tension in the room. “This story is boring.”

The rustling of silk nearly eclipses Lady Kuchiki’s undignified whimper. The room turns its focus to Lord Byakuya, who sits with arms folded against his chest, head tilted down, and eyes hooded in shadow.

“Your insolence here is unappreciated, _boy_ ,” cries Lady Kuchiki. “It is a rude disruption to the flow of the story I was telling.”

“Find a better story, then. We’ve all heard enough variations on the Yuki-onna that it's trite.”

“You have no idea where this story is going,” she protests.

“If I tell you how it goes, can we all finally go to bed?”

Lady Kuchiki turns to Lord Kuchiki, beseeching his intervention on her behalf. The Lord, however, locks eyes with Lord Byakuya. “If you can tell us how this story ends, by all means,” he says drily.

“Fine,” Lord Byakuya snaps, directing the brunt of his glacial stare at Lady Kuchiki, “the two girls die. The elder girl becomes a Yuki-onna who mourns her icy death, and only her icy death, by wandering the winter months to find wealthy gentlemen to lead to their dooms. The end.”

Hisana’s hands are still trembling when he finishes. Bile churns in her stomach, surging up her throat. The grip of nausea forces her to crumple a little, holding onto the contents that threaten to spew forth. She swallows hard, forcing her horror down. 

Before Lady Kuchiki can launch another protest, Lord Kuchiki is already on his feet as if to declare story-time officially over. He raises a hand to summon a young man dressed in a servant’s livery to his side and listens intently to the man’s counsel. 

When the man pulls away, Lord Kuchiki squares his shoulders and announces, “I’m informed many of the roads leading to the estate are flooded. Those of you who are particularly adept with shunpo are more than welcome to leave; however, the lightning strikes are not too far off in the distance if you prefer to wait a while longer. If you are not so inclined, you may remain here for the night.”

Hisana wants badly to cry. Tears prick her eyes, but she holds them back. 

“Are you alright, Hisana?” Okuni asks. 

She gives a mild nod of her head. It’s a lie. She’s not alright. It feels like someone has stabbed her repeatedly in the back, and now she wants nothing more than to collapse in a heap.

“Miyako, are you staying the night?” Okuni asks softly.

“No. I’m afraid both my squad and my soon-to-be husband would have a conniption if I stayed.” Miyako gently pats Hisana’s hand. “You performed admirably tonight. Any _normal_ , _functional_ family would be lucky to have you join it.”

Hisana’s brows knit together. “Join it?” Concubines don’t formally _join_ a family. They hold no legal status and are not included within the family’s lineage.

Miyako spares Lord Byakuya a glancing look, “Seems like at least one member of this family is jockeying for that outcome.”

 _Lord Byakuya._

Hisana watches him, heart frozen in her chest. How could he have done that to her? Betrayed her confidence so completely? Why had she been so stupid to give away that part of herself to a man she knew to be fickle and cold?

Sakuran was right.

She is a stupid girl.

“Alright then,” Lady Kuchiki says, standing at the head of the room. “Lord and Lady Heishi and Lady Suiko along with the Heishi ladies are invited to stay in Lord Kuchiki’s quarters. The Heishi men may quarter in my son’s rooms.”

Okuni and Hisana stare tiredly at one another. “I’m happy to brave the rainstorm,” Hisana mutters under her breath. Anything to get away from these families.

“Misses Hisana and Okuni may lodge in my rooms,” Lord Byakuya says.

Lady Kuchiki gapes at this announcement. “How improper. A betrothed man quartering with two women from the _Third_.”

“He’ll be joining me at the Sixth,” Lord Kuchiki declares flatly, “No improprieties shall be had.”

“Missed opportunity,” whoops one of the Kuchiki men. 

The knowing laughter that erupts in response does not exactly ingratiate the men to Hisana or any of the other women in the room by the looks of it. 

“Then, perhaps we should place Lady Suiko and her attendants in your chambers. It makes the most sense since those will be her quarters after the betrothal. Hisana and Okuni may room in the servants’ quarters,” says Lady Kuchiki.

Lord Byakuya turns to his aunt, pinning her with a stare that could send grown men running for cover. “I will decide who rests in _my chambers_ for the night.”

“Masuyo,” Lord Kuchiki says, staring at her with an impassive expression, “show the lords and ladies to their quarters.” He then turns to Miyako. “I trust you will be joining us on our way to the squads?”

She gives a firm nod of her head. “Yes, Captain.”

“Good. Let us meet by the westward retaining wall in ten minutes.” A glint of warning flickers in Lord Kuchiki’s eyes when he turns to Lord Byakuya. “Byakuya, show the guests to their rooms. Make it quick. There is still work to be done.”

Lord Byakuya bows low. “Yes, Grandfather.”

**Author's Note:**

> Goodness, this was a slog. Hope it reads better than it was to write. As a woman, I really don't love writing about women being petty toward one another and hoped to temper that in the story by giving Hisana some ports in the storm. (Feel free to speculate who pulled the strings to make that happen for her.) 
> 
> As always, so much LOVE for anyone who reads this series. Thank you for your encouragement! ^_^


End file.
